Being out of work does funny things. I was looking through the lists of used books stores, and one of them wanted some help. This wouldn't have been a career move, but it might have fun. So I went down to ask about it. The owner as sitting at a table, talking to his friend. Although the position had been filled, he did introduce me to his friend, none other than the former international editor for the Rocky Mountain News, Holger Jensen. He now writes for the European Press Network, sort of a wire service for columnists and editorialists.

Mr. Jensen is the former editor because he repeated a report than painted Ariel Sharon as a Jewish racist, advocating forcible relocation of the Palestinians. Mr. Sharon made no such comments, and the author of the original interview stated that his subject, while anonymous, was not Mr. Sharon. Mr. Jensen never bothered to find this out, and the paper allowed him to publish a mea culpa before firing him. In any case, his columns leading up to his firing last April were increasingly critical of Israel. Jerusalem could do no right, Ramallah could do no wrong. I'm not sure if the Rocky still has them on line, but they should be available in Lexis-Nexis.

Naturally, he takes a very European view of the Middle East. But he remains opposed to Israel, although he denies it. I'll go into more detail in another posting.